Facing the bare facts of WASL test scores

In the fable of old, an emperor of a certain domain paraded naked through town after being convinced by his advisors that he was, in reality, clothed in beautiful garments. The townspeople played along, cheering him wildly. It was a child who blurted out the truth.

In my story, the modern-day emperor is the education establishment.

Education leaders are parading through our towns right now to celebrate "increases" in student achievement as measured by the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. Yet, this year's results show that 56 percent of all fourth-graders do not meet the standards in the combined subjects of reading, writing and math. The percentage of seventh-graders who do not meet the combined standards is 64 percent. For 10th-graders it is 61 percent. If the new graduation requirements were in place now, 61 percent of our students would not make it.

So why the celebration?

Because, education officials say, increases are being made. Showing increases is vital for them, because a new federal law mandates that parents be given alternatives if their children are in schools that persistently fail to make academic gains.

Under the new federal law, the No Child Left Behind Act, each state established standards for the next 10 years guaranteeing academic progress for schoolchildren, particularly children considered "at-risk." Our state education officials created benchmarks for each of those 10 years, using the WASL to measure achievement.

To pass muster with federal law, a certain percentage of students must score "proficient," and our state officials say more students than ever have become proficient in reading, writing and math. But the definition of "proficient" might surprise you.

In 10th grade, for example, a student must get only 39 points of a possible 64 in math (61 percent) to be declared proficient. Only 42.5 percent of the students hit that benchmark or above. In 10th-grade reading, a student must get only 31 of 52 possible points (60 percent) to be declared proficient. Seventy percent of students are proficient at the 60 percent benchmark. This is the best score of the 10th-grade results.

But that's not the whole story. Education officials decreased the "proficiency cut scores." The changes could push overall student test scores in some grades and subjects 12 percent higher than last year, without those students actually knowing one more iota of information.

Of the four possible achievement categories, requirements for obtaining "Basic" and "Advanced" status were also lowered. This is the baseline used to determine whether or not a school has succeeded or failed to advance student achievement. If a school fails to make adequate yearly progress two or more years in a row, parents are to be given new options for educating their children. Hundreds of schools would have failed this year, if state officials had not changed the baseline. Yet students in those schools are not better prepared academically, and their parents are none the wiser.

Comparisons between achievement scores this year and last are impossible unless very detailed information for each measured subgroup is obtained school-by-school. This is because requirements for several pools of test takers were changed as well. Some of the changes are fine, but it does alter the overall outcome. Furthermore, the education establishment makes data collection very hard. (We are still waiting for information we requested a year ago.)

So, are children making real gains in acquiring necessary knowledge and skills? Not much. Any gain is important, but this one is seriously oversold.

Meanwhile, one-third of students drop out between ninth and 12th grade, and one-third are not qualified to enter the workforce after they graduate from high school. Our higher education institutions are putting more freshman students into remedial courses. And by 2010, America will have lost its edge in math, science, engineering, and technology; mostly because our curriculum in math and science lacks academic integrity and rigor, and because many teachers lack academic credentials in those fields.

These alarming statistics mean we must have far faster results, and the education establishment's unwillingness to adopt the necessary best practices is unacceptable. We need high expectations, rigorous curriculum, reliable testing and highly qualified teachers who are properly compensated according to their excellence.

Perhaps the real reason for the parade-like atmosphere is the education bureaucracy's success in making this information so hard to understand that few citizens, parents and reporters will even attempt it.

In the meantime, we parade onlookers, especially those of us with children in school, ought to be shocked by these bare facts. We shouldn't pretend everything is okay just because important people have convinced themselves they aren't naked. For the children whose futures are at stake, we grownups ought to be saying: "Hey, education establishment, put on some clothes!"

Lynn Harsh is executive director and senior education analyst for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. She is a former school teacher.

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